Posts Tagged With: Base Queenstown

My upcoming departure has me reflecting on my time here and I know that there are a few stories that have been past down amongst my friends like urban legends but for one reason or another I made the decision not to blog about it. One of the favourites amongst everyone is my hostelling experience in Queenstown. This particular event occurred during my second trip to Queenstown. It all started out with an early Saturday morning flight to Queenstown where I was running on absolutely no sleep due to my own stupidity (sadly, this happens more often than I’d like to admit!). In order to be functional when I met up with the tour group the next morning, my plan was to have an early night to recover.

I was staying at the Base Backpackers and as I enter the room, a Welsh girl (her nationality has nothing to do with the story so don’t take this as me being judgmental at all) is freaking out because she’s lost her passport. I told her to retrace her steps and it turns out it was in her purse all along (In hindsight, should have taken this as signs of things to come and found another place to stay). Anyway, as a thank you she begged me to go out with the group but I politely declined and got ready to for a good’s night sleep. Several hours later, she was back, shaking my bed, and asking if I was still awake. Well I was now and I whipped around to find a guy taking off his shirt. It only gets better as one thing leads to another and he has to run out to buy condoms (of course, this is not before the moment where he briefly turns on the light and says, “OMG, you’re actually cute”). Long story short, turns out it wasn’t his lucky day after all as he passes out shortly after he returns and she dumps him off the bed and goes to sleep herself.

At this point – couple #2 walks into the room and not far behind them is couple #3. Each of the couples is off doing their thing all the while the girl from couple #2 is judging couple #3 for being all “Jersey Shore“. The girl from couple #2 is also trying to convince her guy (he’s Irish – again, no judgement) that she’s technically from Edmonton but that’s essentially the same as being from Vancouver (took everything I had to pipe down on this one…crazy lady from Deadmonton!) Sadly, at this point, we’re well into the wee hours of the morning and due to all the activity in my room, I still haven’t really gotten any sleep (can you say grumpy and if I wasn’t so tired, I would have whipped out my video camera to make a buck or two to support my traveling habit). Anyway, this is when the Scottish guy (again, no judgement) who’s got the bunk below me returns to the room and flicks on the lights. He’s extremely drunk, smoking, and annoyed by the naked guy wearing only a condom passed out by his bed and decides something needs to be done. After debating with the 4 other naked people in my room – he proceeds to dry shave the guy. Not everywhere – just one leg, one eyebrow, and his balls.

Thinking back on it now – the banter was pretty funny as things like, “I met her at Ferg Burger…first ferg burger then fucking” were said. Surprisingly, when I left, the events of the night wouldn’t be the only thing that would haunt me that day. When I walked into the bathroom – the floor was covered in blood and I put two and two together and realized that our floor was missing the passed out condom guy. At the end of the day, the moral of this story is to not forget to book your accommodations as the last-minute scramble can sometimes lead to an interesting story but not a whole lot of sleep.